Another follower pointed out his firm Tesla also had a profile on the social network.

“Looks lame,” he replied. Both profiles disappeared within minutes of his posts.

The pages had more than 2.5 million followers each before they were deactivated.

In 2016, Facebook used SpaceX to launch a new communications satellite valued at more than $ 200m (£150m).

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However, the rocket exploded on the launch pad and destroyed the satellite.

After a reporter tweeted that “@elonmusk blew up Mark Zuckerberg’s satellite”, Mr Musk replied: “Yeah, my fault for being an idiot. We did give them a free launch to make up for it and I think they had some insurance.”

He said he would continue to use Facebook-owned Instagram for the time being, but lamented “FB influence is slowly creeping in”.